Connect

Your company's conversations, with video meetings and telephony to come, and a recording that the administrator controls and that is never silent.

In preparation Create an account

Connect brings together an organization's messaging: one-to-one conversations, groups, and public or private channels, in real time. Messages can carry attachments, can be edited or deleted while leaving a trace, and can be found with a search that ignores case and accents.

Messaging is the part that has been tried end to end. Video meetings, SIP telephony and audio recording are written but have never yet been tried with a real media server: they are not offered until they have been, and the application says so for as long as that server is not installed.

The recording of calls and meetings is decided by the organization's administrator: the policy is versioned, participants are notified, only an auditor role can listen, and every access is logged in a journal that cannot be altered. The texts provided are starting points: have your legal counsel validate them, because the rules vary from one country to another. The Launcher application for Android connects to it.

Connect is in preparation. It will join the Etrebil subscription catalogue when it is released.

Every feature of Connect

81 features in 12 areas

Conversations and messages

Chats in real time: one-to-one conversations, groups (50 members at most by default) and public or private channels.
Creates a channel, joins it or leaves it; each channel has an owner and moderators.
Shows colleagues' presence: online, away, offline.
Replies to a specific message and follows the thread of the discussion.
Edits or deletes a message while keeping a trace: the old text remains readable by the author and the moderators.
Attaches files (allowed types are restricted, 25 MB at most, 5 per message), with a SHA-256 checksum.
Shows read receipts and the number of unread messages in each conversation.
Searches messages regardless of case and accents.
Alerts in the interface about new messages.
Limits message size (4,000 characters) and the rate per person, to prevent abuse.

Video meetings (written, not yet tried)

Schedules instant or dated meetings, with guests, linked if needed to a conversation or a channel.
Joins the room from the browser; only the organizer, the guests and the members of the linked conversation can enter.
Chooses a meeting's mode: automatic, peer to peer, via the server, or broadcast with a request to speak granted by the organizer.
Holds small meetings live between browsers, without going through the media server; switches to the server above an adjustable threshold of 2 to 6 people.
Sets the quality per person: audio only, saver, standard, high or automatic, and the number of video thumbnails.
Caps the quality for the whole organization from the Server savings page, with threshold, broadcast allowed and options.
Counts per day the meetings with and without a server, the switches and the link types, without any name or address.
Appoints co-organizers who manage the waiting room together with the organizer.
Shows a recording banner with the announcement to anyone who enters a recorded meeting.

External guests (not yet tried)

Invites people without a Etrebil account by a link; reserved for members with an active license and to be enabled by the organization, disabled by default.
Secret-token link shown only once, regenerable, revocable, time-limited.
Sets up a waiting room: the organizer admits, refuses, refuses and blocks, admits everyone after confirmation, locks the meeting or removes someone.
Limits waiting to 15 minutes and 50 people; the guest accepts a notice before entering, with the recording announcement if there is one.
Limits a guest's rights in the meeting: microphone, camera and chat; screen sharing only if the organizer grants it.
Always labels the guest as a guest, with no access to the directory, the conversations or the emails.
Never exchanges an address with a guest: connection through a relay server or through the media server.
Limits the rate of requests and protects against attempts at unknown links.
Purges the recordings of meetings with guests after 30 days by default, adjustable.

SIP telephony and Android Launcher

Connects connectors to a carrier or a PBX, with encrypted credentials.
Assigns numbers with a label and an incoming-call rule: a person, a channel or a queue.
Sets outgoing calls: who can call, prefix, blocked numbers.
Generates the SIP bridge configuration to copy, password masked, or to apply to the media server.
Keeps the call log: incoming, outgoing, missed, of SIP or mobile origin.
Enrolls a phone with the Android Launcher using a one-time code valid for 10 minutes, from the My devices page.
Sends call metadata up from the phone and applies the organization's recording policy.
Everyone sees and revokes their own devices, the administrator those of the organization; a suspended person is refused.

Recording policy

The administrator decides for the whole organization: no recording (default), metadata only, or audio.
Chooses whether SIP calls are covered; mobile GSM calls are at best metadata, never audio.
Writes the announcement played to the other parties and the message to people.
Sets the retention period, with automatic purge of expired recordings.
Excludes personal numbers: neither recorded nor listed.
Versions every change with its author and date; old versions never change.
Switching to audio requires an explicit confirmation from the administrator, recorded, and an active announcement.
Nothing is ever silent: the recording is announced and displayed to everyone concerned.

Recordings and access log

Keeps a register of recordings: call or meeting, start, duration, number, people, source, policy version, size, checksum and status.
Reserves listening, export and deletion for the Auditor role; an administrator is not one by default and can assign themselves the role, which is logged.
Serves the file through a protected access, never through a permanent public address.
My recordings page: everyone sees what concerns them, when, and who listened to it.
Tamper-evident access log: listening, export, deletion, policy change, role assignment, purge.
The database refuses to modify a log line; each line carries the checksum of the previous one and Verify chain recomputes it.

Permissions and administration

Four profiles: administrator, member, channel guest (one channel only) and recording auditor, the latter combinable with another role.
Mirrors the organization's staff at their first visit; the first visitor is administrator.
Every authorization is checked on the server: a non-member receives nothing and writes nothing.
Organizations are kept separate from one another.
In read-only mode (license missing or access suspended), you can read and export, but not write.
Single sign-on with your Etrebil account; My license and My account pages.

Import and export

Exports your conversations as a ZIP archive readable without our tools: JSON, messages as CSV, original attachments.
An administrator adds to it the public channels, the meetings, the calls and the organization's registers.
The recording policy and its history can be exported by administrators and auditors; audio only by an administrator who is also an auditor.
Import is reserved for administrators; it renames a channel that already exists and ignores a two-person discussion that is already present.
Checks the archive on import: size and paths bounded, allowed extensions, SHA-256 checksums verified, all in a single transaction.
Exporting remains allowed in read-only mode.

Tutorials

Recording policy and auditor role.
Inviting an outside person and managing the waiting room.
Video quality and peer to peer.
Enrolling a phone.
Guided tours in the browser: they start no real meeting and no call.

On your devices

Web: the complete application, with real time, license and data on the server.
Android: the Launcher connects to Connect to retrieve the policy and send up the calls.
No desktop application or Android application specific to Connect for now.
Documents its API for the Launcher at /api/docs.

Good to know

Messaging is the part tried end to end; video, telephony and audio recording have never talked to a real media server.
A banner says so for as long as the media server is not installed: without it, video and telephony are cleanly disabled.
Peer to peer has not been tried with real browsers, cameras and networks; behind some firewalls, a TURN server is needed.
The guest site has never been opened in a browser and remains to be reviewed for security before any go-live.
The announcement and notice texts are starting points to have validated by your legal counsel; no compliance is claimed.
The access log is made to detect tampering; whoever controls the entire database could recompute the chain.

Planned (not available yet)

Offline desktop application.
Android application specific to Connect.
SIP phone built into the Launcher.
Playing the audio announcement to SIP parties: the text is kept, but playing it into the call remains to be built.